| Caucasus Front | |
|---|---|
| Active | 30 December 1941 – 28 January 1942 |
| Country |  Soviet Union |
| Branch |  Red Army |
| Type | Army Group Command |
| Size | Several Armies |
| Engagements | World War II Kerch–Feodosiya Landing Operation |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders | Dmitry Kozlov |
The Caucasus Front was a front of the Red Army during the Second World War.
The Caucasus Front was created on 30 December 1941 from Transcaucasus Front. The commander of the latter, Lieutenant General Dmitry Kozlov, continued in command of the front. Its chief of staff was Major General Fyodor Tolbukhin.
It comprised the
Were operationally subordinated to the front :
The troops of the front completed the Kerch–Feodosiya Landing Operation, began on 25 December by the Transcaucasus Front and Black Sea Fleet, gaining a bridgehead in Crimea and pushing back the defending German forces.
On 28 January 1942, the front was split, with the 44th, 47th, and 51st Armies becoming part of the new Crimean Front, while the 45th and 46th Armies joined the reestablished Transcaucasus Military District. [1]
Transcaucasian Front or Transcaucasus Front was a front of the Soviet Red Army—a military formation comparable to an army group, not a geographic military front—during the Second World War.
The North Caucasian Front or North Caucasus Front was a major formation of the Red Army during the Second World War.
The North Caucasus Military District was a military district of the Russian Armed Forces, which became in 2010 the Southern Military District and lately also included the Black Sea Fleet and Caspian Flotilla.
The Battle of the Kerch Peninsula, which commenced with the Soviet Kerch-Feodosia Landing Operation and ended with the German Operation Bustard Hunt, was a World War II battle between Erich von Manstein's German and Romanian 11th Army and the Soviet Crimean Front forces in the Kerch Peninsula, in the eastern part of the Crimean Peninsula. It began on 26 December 1941, with an amphibious landing operation by two Soviet armies intended to break the Siege of Sevastopol. Axis forces first contained the Soviet beachhead throughout the winter and interdicted its naval supply lines through aerial bombing. From January through April, the Crimean Front launched repeated offensives against the 11th Army, all of which failed with heavy losses. The Red Army lost 352,000 men in the attacks, while the Axis suffered 24,120 casualties. Superior German artillery firepower was largely responsible for the Soviet debacle.
Konstantin Nikolaevich Leselidze, was a Colonel-General and Hero of the Soviet Union who distinguished himself at the North, Transcaucasus and Ukrainian front during World War II. He was also the elder brother of Viktor Nikolaevich Leselidze
The Transcaucasian Military District, a military district of the Soviet Armed Forces, traces its history to May 1921 and the incorporation of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia into the Soviet Union. It was disbanded by being redesignated as a Group of Forces in the early 1990s after the Soviet Union collapse. The military district formed as a basis of the modern day armed forces of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.
A rifle corps was a Soviet corps-level military formation during the mid-twentieth century. Rifle corps were made up of a varying number of rifle divisions, although the allocation of three rifle divisions to a rifle corps was common during the latter part of World War II.
The Separate Coastal Army, also translated to English as Independent Coastal Army, was an army-level unit in the Red Army that fought in World War II. It was established on July 18, 1941, by the order of the Southern Front from the forces of 9th Army’s Coastal Group and was stood up on July 20, 1941.
The 46th Army was a Soviet Red Army field army during World War II. The army was formed in August 1941 and guarded the Turkish border. During the summer of 1942, it fought in the Battle of the Caucasus. During the spring of 1943, the army helped capture Maykop and Krasnodar. During the summer of 1943, it fought in the Donbass Strategic Offensive and the Battle of the Dnieper. During early 1944, it fought in the Nikopol–Krivoi Rog Offensive and the Odessa Offensive. During the summer it fought in the Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive. The army advanced westward and participated in the Battle of Debrecen and Budapest Offensive during the fall. After the fall of Budapest in February 1945, the army fought in the Vienna Offensive and the Prague Offensive. During the summer of 1945 the army moved to the Odessa Military District and was disbanded in September.
The 3rd Rifle Corps was a corps of the Soviet Red Army which saw service in World War II and in the 1950s. The corps was first formed in 1923 from the 3rd Army Corps in the Moscow Military District and fought in the Soviet invasion of Poland and the Winter War. The corps was disbanded in the summer of 1941 and its headquarters became the 46th Army. The 3rd Mountain Rifle Corps was formed in summer 1942 and fought in the Caucasus, Crimea, Dukla Pass, Carpathia and at Prague. The corps was retained in the Soviet Army postwar and moved to Uzhhorod. The corps fought in the Soviet invasion of Hungary and was disbanded there in 1957. Its headquarters was absorbed by the 38th Army.
The 320th Rifle Division was formed in September 1941, as a standard Red Army rifle division, based on an existing division of militia. This formation was devastated in the Kerch Peninsula in May 1942, and officially disbanded before the end of the month. A second division began forming in the Transcaucasus in August, and served for the duration in the southern regions of the Soviet-German front. It distinguished itself in the liberation of Yenakiyevo in March 1943, but also suffered massive losses, including the death of the division's commanding officer, along the Dniestr River in May 1944. A substantially rebuilt division soldiered on through the Balkans, ending the war near Vienna.
The 349th Rifle Division formed in September, 1941, as a standard Red Army rifle division, at Astrakhan. It was assigned to the southern sector of the Soviet-German front, and first saw action in January, 1942, during the winter counteroffensive, but was badly damaged during the German spring offensive that formed the Izium Pocket. The remaining men and equipment of the unit managed to retreat into the Caucasus region in the face of the German summer offensive in such a weakened state that German intelligence wrote the division off as destroyed in October. In fact, the cadre of the division survived, and was transferred to the reserves of Transcaucasus Front in that same month, where it slowly replenished as a low-priority unit. By the end of the year the 349th was assigned to 45th Army along the border with Turkey, and it remained on this quiet front for the duration of the war.
The 392nd Rifle Division was raised in 1941 as an infantry division of the Red Army, and served during the Great Patriotic War in that role. It was formed in August in the Transcaucasus Military District as a Georgian National division. It saw its first action in August, 1942, in the 37th Army and in the course of the final push by the 1st Panzer Army in October it was overrun and nearly destroyed, although it was never actually disbanded. In December what remained was moved to the 45th Army on the border with Turkey where it stayed for the duration of the war.
The 394th Rifle Division was raised in 1941 as an infantry division of the Red Army, and served during the Great Patriotic War in that role. It was formed in August in the Transcaucasus Military District as a Georgian National division. It saw its first action in August, 1942 with 46th Army in the Battle of the Caucasus, blocking some of the passes of the High Caucasus against the advance of the German Army Group A. Following the German retreat in the winter of 1943, the division was assigned to Southwestern Front in 46th Army until August, 1944, winning a battle honor and the Order of the Red Banner on the way. At the end of that year it was assigned to the 37th Army, which was detached from the Front to serve as a garrison unit in the Balkans after the German forces were driven north into Hungary. It remained in this relatively inactive role for the duration of the war, being disbanded shortly thereafter.
The 398th Rifle Division was raised in 1941 as an infantry division of the Red Army, and served briefly during the Second World War in that role. The division followed a very similar combat path to that of the 396th Rifle Division in that unit's 1st formation. It was first formed in August in the Transcaucasus Military District. In January, 1942 it was moved to the Crimea where it joined the 44th Army in Crimean Front. On May 8, now in the 51st Army, it came under attack by the German 11th Army as part of Operation Trappenjagd and within days it was destroyed in the Kerch peninsula, being officially disbanded on May 19 after one of the briefest careers of any Soviet division. The 398th was never reformed.
The 400th Rifle Division was raised in 1941 as an infantry division of the Red Army, and served briefly during the Great Patriotic War in that role. The division followed a very similar combat path to that of the 398th Rifle Division through its existence. It was first formed in August in the Transcaucasus Military District. In January, 1942 it was moved to the Crimea where it joined the 47th Army in Crimean Front. On May 8, now in the 51st Army, it came under attack by the German 11th Army as part of Operation Trappenjagd and within weeks it was destroyed in the Kerch peninsula, being officially disbanded on June 14 after one of the briefest careers of any Soviet division. The 400th was never reformed.
The 406th Rifle Division was raised in 1941 as an infantry division of the Red Army, and served throughout the Great Patriotic War in that role, but saw relatively little combat. It was raised as a Georgian National division in the Transcaucasus Military District, where it remained until the forces of German Army Group A began its drive on the oil fields there as part of Operation Blue. In August 1942 it joined the Northern Group in the Transcaucasus Front, in the 46th Army, defending the high passes through the High Caucasus Mountains west of Mount Elbrus. Once the German threat receded, the 406th returned to guard duties along the borders with Turkey and Iran for the duration of the war.
The 417th Rifle Division was formed as an infantry division of the Red Army in the spring of 1942 and served in that role until after the end of the Great Patriotic War. Although it was formed in the Transcaucasus, unlike the 414th and 416th Rifle Divisions formed in about the same place at the same time it was never designated as a National division. After its formation it remained in service in the Caucasus under direct command of the Transcaucasus Front until the summer of 1942, when it was redeployed first to the Northern Group of Forces in that Front and then to the 9th Army. As German Army Group A retreated from the Caucasus in January, 1943 the division was reassigned to the 58th Army and a few months later to 37th Army in North Caucasus Front. In July it redeployed northward to join Southern Front, where it was assigned to the 63rd Rifle Corps in 44th Army in mid-September as the Front fought through south Ukraine, eventually reaching the land routes to the Crimea. It took part in the offensive that liberated that region in April and May, 1944, fighting in the 51st Army and winning both a battle honor and the Order of the Red Banner in the process. After the Crimea was cleared the 51st Army was moved far to the north, joining 1st Baltic Front. During operations in the Baltic states the 417th was further distinguished with the award of the Order of Suvorov. In March, 1945 it joined the Courland Group of Forces on the Baltic coast containing the German forces encircled in northwest Latvia. It ended the war there and was soon moved to the Ural Military District before being downsized to a rifle brigade. This brigade was briefly brought back to divisional strength during the Cold War.
The 63rd Mountain Rifle Division was formed as a specialized infantry division of the Red Army in July 1936, based on the 2nd Georgian Mountain Division. When the German invasion of the Soviet Union began it was in the Transcaucasus Military District and was soon assigned to the 47th Army for the invasion of Iran. Following this it was moved to the western Caucasus region where it joined the 44th Army of Crimean Front for amphibious operations against the Axis forces in the Crimea. In late December 1941 it landed at Feodosia as part of 9th Rifle Corps. Along with the remainder of the Corps the 63rd Mountain hindered but failed to block the retreat of Axis forces from Kerch, where the 51st Army had also made landings. After a German counteroffensive retook Feodosia in mid-January 1942 the division fell back to the Parpach Isthmus where it took part in trench warfare near the Black Sea coast into the spring, gradually losing strength. On May 8 it was caught up in the opening stage of Operation "Bustard Hunt" (Trappenjagd) and in a few hours was overwhelmed and largely destroyed by German air and artillery bombardment in support of infantry and armor attacks. Less than a week later it was stricken from the Red Army's order of battle and was never rebuilt.
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